Many computer users are often away from their personal computers, or wish to share personal data on their computers with other computer users. Thus, it becomes important to provide those users with remote access to and the ability to share personal data that is available on their personal computers. This is especially true for the user who wishes to access his personal data to conduct business while away from his personal computer. “Personal data” of a user relates to information of a personal nature such as email data, contacts data, schedule data, and computer data files, of that user. Other examples of personal data are described below.
For instance, a travelling salesman needs to change an appointment with a customer and confirm that change with the customer. The salesman requires access to his schedule data to record the new time or date of the appointment. Contacts data would then be required to identify an email address or telephone number of the customer. The businessman could then send one type of email data, an email message, to that customer to confirm the new appointment. Additionally, the businessman may wish to view a document file (e.g. a contract) remotely from his computer and then attach that file to an email message to send to the customer for review prior to the new appointment.
Conventional remote access systems exist to provide remote access to personal data stored at some data source. These conventional solutions, however, are generally server-based. That is, the solution involves enabling an existing server such as a Microsoft Exchange Server to make the server remotely accessible over some data network. The remote access server, functioning as the data source, is not owned, operated by, or otherwise associated with a single remote user. Rather, the server is owned by some third party and associated with a plurality of users, such that each user can access one or more accounts on the server. A user's account is provided with a unique user name and password preferably known only to that user. The personal data of respective users is stored at the server or at a third party database having a plurality of accounts managed by the server. A particular user can then access his personal data through his account.
Conventional server-based solutions for providing remote access to personal data are expensive and time-consuming to set up and implement. This is because these server-based solutions are driven not only by software improvements, but also hardware improvements or modifications. An organization desiring to offer remote access to personal data using a server-based solution must generally acquire and implement the necessary server and database hardware. In addition to the costs incurred in obtaining this hardware, the organization must then pay to have the remote access system installed. This project must be completed before any remote access services can be used.
Conventional server-based solutions also present burdens to the remote user. The remote user must rely on the organization operating the server or some other entity to manage his personal data. In addition, because the user's personal data is stored at a shared server rather than his own personal device, the user must regularly synchronize his personal device or devices with his server account. Only in this way can the user maintain consistent versions of his personal data on the various devices.